Timeless Desire (32 page)

“I think I need to lie down,” Panna said, standing. “The excitement has been a bit overwhelming. So glad to have met you.” She bowed.

“Panna—” Jamie said.

She ran to the door.

J
AMIE LEAPT TO HIS FEET AND
gave Abigail a quick, helpless bow. He owed her an explanation, but he owed Panna one first. Besides, what could he say? He certainly hadn’t known when he crawled through Abigail’s window that he was going to be forced to marry a few hours later.

MacIver caught his sleeve. “Let her go.”

“I need to—”

“Sit. Do you recall the scouts I told you I was sending out?”

“Aye.”

“Sit down, Jamie.”

The chair nearest MacIver was occupied, but the man, hearing MacIver’s words, dropped his fork and offered Jamie his place.

Jamie sank into the seat as Panna disappeared down the stairs.

“One man has returned,” MacIver said so quietly that Jamie had to lean forward to hear amid the buzz of conversation at the table. “He tells me that half the bloody English army is amassing five miles from where we sit. And you advised me to send the clans home? You’re a damned spy sent by your father, and the moment my visitors leave the castle I will have you cut into pieces and fed to my dogs.”

Cold terror arched up Jamie’s back. “I knew but couldn’t tell you.”

“And you shall pay the price for your foolish game.”

“If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t have found out. Why do you think I came to you?”

“Because I hold the key to destroying your queen’s efforts in the borderlands.”

“I stand by my words,” Jamie said. “You must not attack. But even you should see it now. You’ll be outmanned five to one. You don’t want to see a thousand of your men die.”

“Who says I don’t? A thousand dead could mean ten thousand raise arms in response.”

Jamie shoved the plate away to bring his mouth to his grandfather’s ear. “I don’t believe you. A thousand dead is a thousand dead. That is all. You will never overcome the English army. Not today. Not on this battlefield. And you will be remembered as the man at the beginning of the end for the Scots. Listen to me: Do not do it. Convince your comrades to put down their arms.”

MacIver laid a hand on Jamie’s wrist as if he were giving him an affectionate squeeze. Instead his grip was as hard as forged iron. For a long moment he gazed into his grandson’s eyes. “You are walking a fine, fine line, Captain. Two of my men will follow you when you leave this room. You had better pray that I am in a happier mood at the end of this morning’s council session than I am right now.”

He released Bridgewater’s arm and thumped him affably on the back. “Many happy returns.”

B
RIDGEWATER KNOCKED TENTATIVELY ON
P
ANNA
’
S DOOR
.

“What?” she called.

“May I see you?”

With a grudging sigh, she opened it. The look on her face, neither friendly nor angry, made him wary.

“I think . . . I might have hurt you.”

She returned to the wardrobe, which stood open, and gazed at the shelves as if she were intent on rearranging them.

“You have not hurt me. Are things settled now with your grandfather and the clans?”

“He found out the army is gathering in Cumbria.”

She did not turn. “Good. That should convince him to call off the attack, shouldn’t it?”

“I’m afraid it only made him more suspicious of my motives. It took all I possessed to convince him again that a call to put down arms would be in Scotland’s best interest. In fact, I’m not sure I did convince him.”

“So now the clan chiefs meet?”

“Aye, the chiefs meet.” The clan chiefs and Abigail Kerr. He lowered his head. “I’m sorry, Panna. I owe you—”

“You owe me nothing, Bridgewater,” she said, turning at last.

She had abandoned the use of his Christian name, and he felt the loss sorely.

“I owe you the truth.”

“You owed me the truth when you woke me after you were shot, not now. We are not a couple. This marriage is just for show. Let’s not let our game here get in the way of remembering that.”

“I went to see Abigail because she has often served as my eyes and ears into the goings-on of the clans. We have been friends for many years.” He saw the look on Panna’s face and amended his statement. “More than friends.”

“Oh, God, what a position you’ve put me in,” she said, anger turning to distress. “She seems like a nice enough woman. I don’t want to be the person who comes between the two of you.”

“Our friendship isn’t like that. There is no ‘between’ between us—or rather, there is, but the space is open to anyone.” He met Panna’s eyes. “Her stipulation.”

“I saw her face, Jamie.”

He chewed the side of his mouth. He hadn’t thought Abigail capable of anything deeper than a shared regard and pleasure—not with him at least, not when her attention was consumed with retaining the respect of her clan and keeping control of it. But he was hardly an expert at understanding women, and he would never dare doubt the look of certainty in Panna’s clear blue eyes.

“If what you say is true, I owe her an apology as well.”

“As do I.”

“No,” he said firmly. “No, I cannot have”—he almost said “my wife”—“you apologizing to her. It would suggest a position of inferiority. I cannot have her thinking that she . . .” He searched for the right phrase but realized there wasn’t one.

“That she what, Jamie?”

“That she takes precedence, I suppose. I am a married man now, even if our marriage was an expedient. I will not be going to Coldstream anymore. Twould dishonor you.”

“Though our vows mean nothing?”

He hoped she hadn’t seen him flinch. “I have no high opinion of my moral stature, Panna, but I am not the sort of man who wants to be known as a husband who strays.”

“And yet, we will be saying good-bye, Jamie. What then?”

What was behind her question? Did she want him to ask her to stay? Or was she merely looking for reassurance that her time here would end soon? He searched her face but didn’t have enough experience untangling the emotion behind those eyes to know.

“I . . . don’t know.”

She turned back to the wardrobe, and he damned himself for his inability to get anything right.

“Panna?”

She stood tiptoe and grabbed three books from the wardrobe’s top shelf, then walked over and handed them to him.

“They were your mother’s,” she said. “Mrs. Brownlow said I could give them to you. It’s not much, but I think it might make a nice addition to your library.”

His heart swelled. He had the few letters his mother had received from her friends after she’d been banished, as well as the notes the earl had written to her, but the priest had sold or given away most of her belongings.

He sank onto the bed and opened the first book. It was a history of Scotland, which made him chuckle. The pages most worn were the sections on William Wallace and the history of the MacIver family. The book had been inscribed by Hector MacIver: “To my beloved daughter. Tis time for you to learn your place in the world.”

“I suppose this was given to her before she was sent away.” Panna had seated herself beside him and had been reading over his shoulder.

“And I have no doubt studying this was as important as studying the Bible.”

“That’s heresy,” Panna said with a slight smile.

“Not in this place.”

Bridgewater could smell lilies on Panna’s skin and the sweet scent of lilac wafting from a sprig that Mrs. Brownlow had put in her hair. He ached with a longing like hunger. How he wanted to fill himself with her.

She lifted her head, and he was too slow to hide the look in his eyes.

He reached for her cheek and brought her mouth to his. The books clattered onto the floor, but he didn’t care. He had no interest in the past, only in the moment he was living now.

She made a small noise, which undid him. A storm flew across his flesh, as if a thousand tiny mortars were exploding, and his heart raced to stay ahead of it.

“I don’t care about Abigail,” he whispered. “If banishing her to the far shores of the Shetland Islands would restore a smile to your face, I’d do it in an instant.”

Panna put two fingers to his lips and drew him slowly back onto the bed.

T
HOUGH THE BEDSTEAD GROANED UNDER THEIR WEIGHT
, P
ANNA FELT
as light as air. Jamie fumbled as he drew the ribbons from her laces, and she wondered if he was as affected as she. The touch of his hand on her breast sent a lurch through her. She pressed her mouth to his, reveling in the tang of wine there.

He raised himself on an elbow to explore her neck and collarbone with his mouth, and she saw him wince.

“Are you all right?” she asked softly.

“There isn’t an inch of me that doesn’t hurt, but I am determined to bed you.”

She laughed, and the giddiness filled her like helium. She let her eyes trail over his body, then drew her hand along the span of his back that probably hurt him least.

“If you think that is soothing, lass,” he said, “I can assure you it is not.”

She laughed again.

“Come,” he said. “Let us get you undressed.”

They stood and he helped her out of her gown. Her heart beat against the linen of her shift as he gazed at her.

“God, you’re lovely. But before we go further, there is something I need to take care of.” He stepped into the hall, and she could hear the murmur of voices outside. A moment later he returned with a smile and closed the door firmly.

“What?” she demanded.

“There are guards outside, you know.”

“Your grandfather is not exactly a trusting man, is he?”

“No. But I have purchased an hour of uninterrupted privacy. The guards were reluctant to make such a promise, concerned as they were about us using the windows for an escape—”

“And Lord knows you have a taste for climbing walls.”

“The fact of which I am grateful they are, as yet, unaware. However, they were not immune to the appeal of a new and clearly desperate groom.”

His eyes met hers, and her breath caught in her throat.

“There was a price, though,” he said.

“One you paid, I hope.”

“I have made a down payment, to be sure.”

She looked at him, confused, before it dawned on her that her gown was nowhere to be seen.

“You gave them my
dress
?”

“They were quite satisfied a lady would not mount an escape without one.”

“Then they are fools.” She thought with satisfaction of her recent escape from Adderly’s room.

“Not everyone knows what it means to be up against the fearless Panna Kennedy,” he said, adding, “Thank God,” as an afterthought.

He skinned off his shirt, and she was again amazed at the lean muscularity of his chest as well as the signs, past and present, of the violence he’d endured.

She went to him, blissful, and he pulled the shift over her head and drew her against him.